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Thursday, April 26, 2012

X is for X-Men and Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters

Well, this might not be the most original topic for “X”, but I simply couldn’t let this blogfest pass me by without talking about the X-Men at least once. And since I’m running out of steam a bit in this challenge, I decided to abandon my original idea for this post (in which I planned to give a long, drawn out – and probably pompous – speech on metaphorical mutant racism and its real life counterparts). Instead I thought I’d talk about something a little more personal.

To begin, the X-Men comics are my favorite comic book series, and have been since I first found my way to the superhero genre. I was immediately drawn to the concept of Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, where Professor X taught teenage mutants to harness their powers and work together as a team. I always found the idea of young kids fighting evil exceptionally interesting, and more importantly, I love the idea of those same kids going through training, studying superherodom the way normal kids study to become an engineer or lawyer.

This concept stayed with me over the years, until the fall of 2011 when it – along with a few other books and movies – sparked the idea for my current novel. Unsurprisingly, the storyline involves three young high school students who are recruited into an elite, superhero team and taken through several months of intense training. While it doesn’t resemble X-Men too closely, my story certainly draws on Stan Lee’s for inspiration.

And for those of you who, like me, are X-Men enthusiasts, I wanted to mention a TV show called Alphas that friend Steven introduced it to me last year. Alphas is a SyFy channel series created by Zak Penn – better known as the writer X-Men 2, X-Men: The Last Stand, Elketra, The Incredible Hulk, and The Avengers (which he co-wrote with Joss Whedon). Here’s a quick synopsis:

The series follows five people with super abilities, known as "Alphas", led by noted neurologist and psychologist Dr. Lee Rosen as they investigate criminal cases involving other suspected Alphas. Rosen and his team of Alphas operate under the auspices of the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, the criminal investigative arm of the U.S. Department of Defense. While investigating these crimes, the team quickly discovers that a group known as "Red Flag", which was thought defeated and eliminated long ago, is using other Alphas to commit crimes.

If you haven’t seen it already, I’d highly recommend watching it. Season 2 begins this summer!

This post is part of the Blogging A through Z Challenge 2012. My theme is (in case you didn’t already guess) science fiction. Stay tuned for the rest of the alphabet, and if you’d like to check in on the rest of the participants, simply click here.

I consider X-Men one of my favorite comics and cartoons (the 90s series) too. I especially love Wolverine (who doesn't!?) and Hugh Jackman's portrayal of the character is the only reason why I'm a Hugh Jackman fan today.

P.S: Your book sounds like it's going to kick-ass; can't wait to read it. I'd been working on a similar book myself, since 1998 in fact:

Just wanted to let you know how much I've enjoyed meeting you over the A to Z Challenge, S.L. Because this month has been given over entirely to my writing deadline and my book trailer shoot, I almost didn't take part, even though I'd been looking forward to it all year.

But I figured I could still swing it, as long as I kept it short and sweet. The only thing I haven't been able to do is swing by the other blogs. Total drag!

When I was a kid some of my cousins collected the X-Men trainding cards. Did you ever have those? I loved drawing my own heroes in cool costumes and gave them differen powers. Loved the '90's cartoon as well.

Have you seen the new Japanese Anime X-Men? It is... interesting... A little hard to follow at times. Perhaps something is lost in the translation.

We love Alphas, too. Especially Gary. (Although, after "Bones" it was weird to hear him sans the Brit accent.)

I didn't read comics when I was a kid actually. so didn't know much about this story until later. It's a fun idea, that evolution could bring us to a point of powerful and greatly varied abilities. Imagine the side effect though- once everyone was like this... how bad beauty envy is today, what would it be like then? envy of better powers would only be even more pronounced I'd think. All the unfortunates who's birth power are lame things like touching silverware makes it polished, or they toast bread, or make rocks smell like apple, while others get to read minds, fly, stop time and phase shift.

When I was a kid, I found out that I was being put in the "gifted and talented" program. There are no words to describe my disappointment when I learned that it did not mean that I was going to join the X-men. (Yes, I'm a nerd.)